It is known that storage, handling and shipping of radioactive products, in the nuclear industry, pose serious protection problems.
When working with radioactive materials, for example in the manufacture and handling of nuclear fuels, it is necessary to provide for the construction of partitions, blocks, and/or buildings either of special materials such as lead walls, or of traditional materials, such as concrete, but with a very great thickness.
Another extremely bothersome problem is that related to radioactive wastes coming from the nuclear industry.
It is known that during manufacture of nuclear fuels and after use of these fuels, wastes are produced that have varying degrees of radioactivity. Other wastes also come from material, operating equipment, slurries, clothing and other contaminated objects. These residues and wastes are now stored close to their fabrication sites, but there is beginning to be a space shortage and there has been consideration to treating them before shipping, and storing them at a final site.
Various techniques have been proposed to treat these radioactive residues to facilitate their handling and storage. Liquid wastes can be solidified with such materials as cement, asphalt, schists, fly ash or be fixed in concrete of various compositions, e.g., mixture of glass and cement, mixture of vermiculite and cement, etc. According to another technique, highly radioactive liquid wastes are treated by a vitrification process that consists of concentrating the solution to complete dryness and causing the resulting dry product to go into the composition of an insoluble glass poured in blocks which are stored in hermetic deep wells. This technique requires an installation for concentrating the solution containing the radioactive elements and a mini-glassworks, the unit being in a building with walls able to stop dangerous radiation. Slightly or moderately radioactive residual products are generally enclosed in suitably thick steel containers which can be coated with tar or in concrete with a selected composition that can absorb radiation.